Purpose of Authentication provider and Directory Provider

[aks]

Hi,

1. In Administration Console, click Settings > User Management > Domain Management.
2. Click New Enterprise Domain.

There we need to add authentication provider and directory provider.

My question is What is the purpose of both?

Thanks

[Former Community Member]

Directory Provider allows a Livecycle Admin to create/sync Users to the Livcycle system, make them part of the system so that they can access the services and perform different activities in the workflow.

On the other hand the Authentication Provider serves as a checkpoint for the said users who are trying to access the system. Authentication Provider asks the user to authenticate itself against various authtication providers(e.g. LDAP, IDP, Db, Custom SPI, Kerberos) before using the Livecycle services.

Please refer the Livecycle Help docs for the detailed description and usage of both Auth Provider and Directory Provider.

The documentation for ES3 is available at, http://help.adobe.com/en_US/livecycle/10.0/AdminHelp/index.html -> "Setting up and managing domains" -> "Configuring authentication providers" & "Configuring directories".